Many automatic vehicle washers are currently in use. Typically, automatic vehicle washers have a number of stations at which a vehicle, moving through the washer, is sprayed with cleaning liquid, scrubbed and brushed, and dried.
Generally, the cleaning liquid sprayers are in the form of nozzle arrays through which cleaning liquid is ejected under pressure as the vehicle passes the nozzles. Some of these nozzle arrays are positioned at the sides of the path along which the vehicle is moved, so that the sides of the vehicle can be cleaned and above the path of vehicle movement for cleaning the top surfaces of vehicles.
Typically, side sprayers and top sprayers are arranged to be effective in cleaning only the surfaces of the vehicle which the sprayers face. The center lines of the nozzles are perpendicular to the surfaces of the vehicle, so that the spray from the nozzles impinges only on those surfaces of the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,848 to Messing, et al, shows a side sprayer in which the nozzles are arranged in a single-line, vertical array which is reciprocated vertically. The array of nozzles also is pivotted, so that the nozzles spray the front of the vehicle as it approaches the nozzles, the sides of the vehicle as the vehicle passes the nozzles, and the rear of the vehicle as it leaves the nozzles. In this way, the side sprayer also contributes to the cleaning of the front and the rear of the vehicle.
The side spray apparatus described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,848 is fairly complex in construction. The superimposing of pivotal movement of the nozzle array on vertical reciprocation of the nozzle array requires highly accurate design and fabrication of many cooperating parts for the apparatus to be effective and reliable.